For 4,400 years, a small clay tablet lay hidden inside the ruins of the Ancient Sumerian city of Nippur (in what’s now southern Iraq). This tablet may be miniscule but it reveals a forgotten myth that expands Mespotamian storytelling. Today, this ancient tablet (labeled Ni 12501) rests in Turkey’s Istanbul Archaeological Museums, where University of
Zeus’s rise to ultimate power wasn’t just forged by thunderbolts and battles with Titans—it was an act of divine transcendence, rooted in an ancient Orphic tradition often overshadowed by Hesiod’s Theogony. Hesiod’s genesis account gives us a divine family tree of order and rebellion—a genesis filled with clashes and conquests. However, Hesiod’s genesis isn’t the
As part of the “Heritage to the Future Project” carried out by Turkey’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism, excavations are underway under the ancient city of Aspendos. One of these digs, ongoing since 2024, has just revealed something extraordinary. Amidst the ruins of a nymphaion, a monumental fountain here attached to an entrance gate of
Archaeologists from the University of Barcelona excavating the ancient Egyptian city of Oxyrhynchus have uncovered a cache of mummies dating to the Ptolemaic period. Some of the mummies, which seem to have escaped the attentions of looters down the centuries, have golden tongues. Oxyrhynchus, known today as Al-Bahnasa, has been under excavation since 1992, producing
A new analysis of a vase from ancient Egypt has revealed what we think everyone already knew: ancient Egyptians loved their psychedelics. The vase, fashioned in the likeness of the Egyptian party god Bes, contains a heady cocktail of hallucinogens and other mind-altering substances. The study, headed up by Professor Davide Tanasi of the University
Urim and Thummim are an enigma, both at the same time a vital central aspect of the Bible and almost willfully obscure. In a narrative where God appears regularly but only when He chooses, they seem to be a way for the Hebrews of David’s kingdom to call Him directly. This could be useful, as